Saturday, January 30, 2010

Around here, we are taking it easy today. The sun is shining here in Illinois, but it is COLD...so we are all snuggled by the fire doing our own little thing indoors.

For me, that means reading a good book, which I have been doing a TON with Ben gone. I am devouring easily 6-7 books a week. Hmmmm, not sure I will be able to break this habit when he gets back, but that means that I have lots of opportunities to use bookmarks.

I love creating bookmarks. It's a card where you can actually enjoy what you created.

Be sure to check out the other Friday Fun Girls blogs for more inspiration (I am not sure who all is participating this week with CHA and sickness floating around, but their blogs are always full of inspiration so it is worth a visit anyway!) We would love for you to play with us- just use keyword FFC67 when uploading to your SCS gallery.

Today's Makeup 4 the Weekend challenge is brought to you by ME! And you all know that I love a good inspiration piece so I went and scoured the Pottery Barn website (one of my FAVORITE inspiration places!!!) I am pretty sure that today's photo came from Pottery Barn Teen...

Details about the challenge:

Make a card using the above picture as an inspiration (remember it can be anything about the card that inspires you) and link it up to Mr. Linky at the bottom of the PMS blog post (direct links please). You do not have to usePaper Makeup Stamps but if you've got 'em we'd love to see your work!! When you upload to SCS/PCP please use keyword M4TW14 so we can see your creations there as well.

And here is my card for the challenge....

I used Paper Makeup Stamps Moody for Music (the first time I have gotten her inky...YAY!) and that great friend sentiment which is PERFECT for thinking of you cards.

The big, bold black & white polkadot paper is actually the back of the packaging on Prima bling. If you hang around here much, you know I use the Prima packaging as much as I do the insides. ;o)

I used watercolor pencils on the Moody and a bit of turquoise glitter on her stars to make them stand out. (it's easier to see that when you click on the photos.)

Thursday, January 28, 2010

The lurgy has hit our household big time this week. Kat is slowly (very slowly) on her way to recovery, but it appears that Jacob and I are succumbing to the germs rather quickly. *ugh*

Today, I am going to share with you several cards that I have made over the last couple of weeks and I will be honest with you, I am not in love with any of these cards which is why I am sharing them all as one big blog post.

For the frame of the sentiment, I inked it up in the CTMH blush ink and then "kissed" it to my inked up in black Grainy Background stamp. I also added the tiniest bit of dark pink shading around the interior of the frame with a watercolor pencils and a black detail line using a Zig Marker.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Kat is still sick and is sitting on my lap letting me know that this is really not where she would like to be so we are about to go snuggle up in front of some movies for today.

This is another card like yesterday's card that I created using a Papercrafts Magazine sketch for submission. It didn't get picked up, but that's okay...that just means that I can share it here with you all.

I mentioned it last week, but I just love these Paper Makeup Caliope stamps. This one is Caliope Camping.

I paper-pieced Caliope's clothes and then used watercolor pencils on everything else.

1. Stamp the main image onto white cardstock and a corresponding piece of the patterned paper. 2. Create a bit of the details on the white stamped image using watercolor pencils. 3. Paper piece the remaining parts of the stamp and die cut this piece using the label die cut. 4. Create the base for the card using the example as your guide. 5. Add buttons, gems, and the stamped piece to your card to finish it off.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Jacob tends to start getting ready to go to school (shower included) at about 6:50 am. He has to be out the door at the latest at 7:00 to catch the bus. This morning, he couldn't find his shoes. There is no extra time built into his morning schedule (is it actually a schedule if it's only 10 minutes to shower, dress, shave and eat?!?) to actually look under things, so he missed the bus this morning.

Add to that, Kat has been running a low-grade fever for the last few days because she has a cold and isn't feeling the best. She was NOT thrilled to be hustled out of bed to crawl into her car seat for a run to the high school.

The good news is that I am dressed for the day...not showered, but I am dressed. hehe!

Crazy Monday morning...

I have a card to share with you today. This was a rejected submission to PaperCrafts Magazine using one of their sketches. I'll have another (rejected) version of the sketch to share tomorrow.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

my creative muse hasn't been feeling very inspired the last couple of days.

Last night i was stamping and about to give up for the evening when I pulled out these papers from Limelight Papercrafts and all of a sudden inspiration struck.

I love it when the combination of products gives me inspiration and

I LOVE THIS CARD!

It is very much my style...whatever that is...LOL!

The stamps (the row of wildflowers and sentiment) are from this month's Unity stamp store Kom...Livin and Lovin Life.

I have a very old dictionary that I bought a few years ago for .25 cents and the butterflies are punched from some of those papers. I highlighted their body using Liquid Pearls. This is my first time using Liquid Pearls and they didn't turn out as perfectly round as I would like. Anyone have any hints on how to use those?

Friday, January 22, 2010

{this is post #2 for the day. If you are here for my Makeup 4 the Weekend challenge, it is located below this post.}

Our Friday Fun Challenges this month have been selected by Sara and this month is National Hot Tea Month so she chose this week's theme to be Tea.

I love this theme and have been a long-time tea person. I don't drink it as often as I used to, but still find the whole ritual of drinking hot tea to be a perfect relaxant for me. When Jacob was 4 (that was absolutely his hardest year for me as a mom,) I would brew a cup of tea every night after his bedtime and go out and sit on the porch and sip it with a good magazine simply as a way to unwind.

Because I do enjoy tea so much, I wanted to do something a bit different this week....

This is a very simple 8x10 piece of wall art.

It's very simple because every time I tried to fancy it up, it seemed to take away from the overall look so I just left it at simple. I love that large teacup stamp...remember the art piece in the center of this frame is 8x10 so that tells you just how big that stamp is!

Be sure to check out the other Friday Fun Girls blogs for more inspiration (although a couple of lucky ones are playing at CHA so may not have any current artwork up for the challenge, but their blogs are gorgeous anyway so go check them all out!) We would love for you to play with us- just use keyword FFC66 when uploading to your SCS gallery.

Lots going on here today. This is post #1 of 2 for the day (have you noticed that Thursday and Fridays are really crazy days on here? LOL...lots of multi-posts!)

This is post is for the Paper Makeup Stamps Makeup4theWeekend challenge and this week our challenge is this gorgeous sketch!

The details about the challenge:

Make a card using the above sketch and link it up to Mr. Linky at the bottom of this PMS blog post (direct links please). You do not have to use Paper Makeup Stamps but if you've got 'em we'd love to see your work!! When you upload to SCS/PCP please use keyword M4TW13 so we can see your creations there as well.

This week our challenge was to use this sketch and incorporate canvas....

The Deets:**Use the sketch above and try to incorporate your favorite CANVAS!! You can use one of these tags, some actual canvas, a canvas-print stamp...whatever goes! (If you don't have any canvas, we hope you'll play along anyway!)**Key word for SCS upload is LLPC039.**Post a comment with a link to your card right here on the challenge postby Sunday, January 24, at midnight (or before winner is drawn Monday a.m.).**PRIZE ~ One lucky winner will receive one package of Basic Grey Origins Canvas Tags!!

I apologize for my photo lighting. I will try to get better photos once the sun comes up...

The sketch is for a card, but with all those little pieces, I thought that it might translate well into a scrapbook layout.

This is a good technique for when you have lots of photos. These were from one Sunday afternoon over the summer when we made our own hand-churned ice cream.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) show starts this weekend. Unity Stamp Co. has some incredible kits coming out and the Design Team has been given the go-ahead to start sharing some peeks of what is coming! This is definitely one of my favorites of the new releases coming, A Noteworthy Occasion.